Registration for the Fall Semester at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at William and Mary began yesterday and runs through the end of the week. Click here to see the catalog https://www.wm.edu/offices/auxiliary/osher/coursecatalog.pdf. Some of the courses are offered through Zoom, so you might find something you like even if you don’t live in Williamsburg.
This is the best deal in town. For a fee of $150, Osher members can take up to eight courses (which last 3 or 6 weeks) and an unlimited number of one-time lectures. (Instructors can take courses for free. Woo-hoo!) When you register for classes, you prioritize your choices, so you have a better chance of getting into the classes you are most interested in. Classes taught by some of our more popular instructors and or about some of our more popular topics have waiting lists, so this can be important.
The first registration period will close at 5PM on Friday, July 29, and a lottery will be run to make the first allocation of classes. Confirmation emails will go out the middle of August, so members will know what classes they got into. On August 19, the registration system will open again, and members can continue to sign up for open classes until the members have reached their course limit.
Here are a few of the classes that will be offered this semester:
“Fixing the Boys” – 250 years of American Wartime Plastic Surgery. Taught by a retired reconstructive surgeon and Vietnam veteran.
Education in America: From McGuffey Readers to Critical Race Theory. Taught by retired public school social studies teachers and education consultant
The Lost Cause: How the South’s post-Civil War Propaganda Campaign Won the Peace. Taught by an American History PhD with experience in historic preservation.
The Military Trail of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators. Taught by a Marine veteran and professor at the National Defense University and a docent at the Lincoln Conspirators Trial courtroom at Ft. McNair in Washington, DC.
Down These Mean Streets. A study of Film Noir. Members of this class will watch clips from six films in this genre. The course description says that the films will feature “protagonists disabused from believing that the lights will always turn green for them or that their luck will never run out.” Taught by a retired employee of a medical testing laboratory. Osher instructors often teach their passion, not their careers.
A Public Encounter with a Private Impressionist: Edgar Degas. This course is based on a recent exhibit at the Muscarelle Museum of Art on the W&M campus. Taught by two docents at the museum.
Mastering your iPhone/iPad Camera & Photos Applications. This is a Zoom class. Taught by a retired executive with Dell.
Fake News, Propaganda, and You. An examination of how to spot propaganda in the wild. Taught by the head of research at William & Mary Libraries
Cyber Threat: From Prank to Warfare. Taught by a West Point grad who worked in cyber-security in government agencies and in embassies around the world
Basic Wine Appreciation. The last session will include a wine tasting.
Television Sports Today. Taught by a former senior vice president of ABC Sports.
Functional Exercises to Improve Fitness, Balance, and Agility. A combination lecture/actitivy class that will provide opportunities to practice the exercises discussed. Taught by a retired expert in kinesiology and sports medicine.
Walking for Fitness: Basic and Advanced. Two levels of this course, taught by a two-time National Race Walk Champion and international competitor and coach.
William Falkner – Intrusion of the Past Upon the Present. The members of the class will read and discuss “Go Down, Moses” and “As I Lay Dying.” Taught by a retired oncologist who received a D. Litt after a career in the pharmaceutical industry
A Guided Self-Exploration of the Iliad. Taught by a retired high school English teacher who focused on the Iliad and the Odyssey as much as he could.
Introductory Astronomy. The final class will be a star-gazing evening at a local golf course. Taught by a retired NASA engineer.
The Life Most Worth Living: Virtue Theory in Ancient & Modern Perspective. Taught by the retired head of the philosophy department at the US Air Force Academy
History and Psychology of the Great Pandemics. Taught by a retired professor of clinical psychology.
Mathematical Cranks, and the Problems They Think They Have Solved. Taught by a retired W&M math professor. To Penny if you’ve read this far – the course description includes the following sentence: “There are no prerequisites, but some recall of high school geometry might prove helpful.”
Last Stand! A Study of Three Desperate “To the Last Man” Battles. Taught by a retired corporate executive who is another lifelong history buff. I’ve never heard of the battles he’ll be talking about: The French Foreign Legion at Camarone, Mexico, in 1863; the South Wales Borderers vs. the Zulu at Rorkes Drift, South Africa, in 1879; and the Gloucester Regiment at the Imjin River, North Korea, in 1951. Another plug; his courses are also terrific.
What is Fascism? An Historical Analysis. Taught by a retired modern European History professor. I took this class a year or so ago. In the last session, we spent time analyzing the question “Is Trump a Fascist?” We all agreed on the answer. You can probably guess what we concluded.
You get the idea.
There’s a lot to choose from this semester. We have a lot of new instructors and new courses, so boredom is not an option. As I’ve said before, you probably have an Osher program (or similar lifelong learning institution) near you. Check it out.
Hi, Karen! Thank you for highlighting Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at William and Mary! It’s an amazing program and fun, too!! 😎
"There are no prerequisites, but some recall of high school geometry might prove helpful.” I can see by the course description why he says this, although I have some skepticism as to how much of construction with straightedge and compass (anyone who hasn't taught Geometry) would remember.
Reading about the course you will be teaching (Interpreting the Past) reminds me of the history unit in GEMS. Am I correct that this is similar to what you built the GEMS unit around?
Another note; I see that Ed Linz (remember him from WSHS?) is teaching a course in American History about what the 1920’s suggest for the 2020’s economically. Small world!